Apple Claims That Samsung Is Infringing On Five Of Its Patents Over Features

So now that Apple and Samsung are back in court, we must prepare ourselves for a month long commitment of news regarding every single detail about the case. In this latest lawsuit from Apple over patent infringement, Apple is suing Samsung to the tune of $2 billion over features that it claims were patented, that Samsung is infringing upon with similar features found in their software. Apple won the last case against Samsung where the Korean manufacturer was found infringing on design patents, so this time around being about specific features, what exactly is Apple claiming that Samsung has copied? Lets take a look at accusations.

So far, Apple say that Samsung has infringed on five different features that while used in Samsung devices, are widely used in many Android products as a whole and not just Samsung products alone. To start things off, Apple claims that Background data syncing is a feature that they found to be infringing on their patent for Asynchronous data synchronization among devices. The feature is pretty self explanatory as to what it does, but to those unaware, it basically lets you use apps while they sync data with other devices. Think about Google’s note application that was introduced with Jelly Bean called Google Keep, since the app is tied to Google account, if you make a note with Keep on your smartphone, it’ll save on that device, but also sync with any other device that has Google Keep and that same Google account tied to it. Universal Search is another feature that Apple claims to be infringing on their patent for Universal interface for retrieval of information in a computer system, which is a feature that can be found on pretty much every single Android phone.

Heard of Apple’s patent for System and Method for performing an action on a structure in computer-generated data? It was awarded to them back in 1999, and basically applies to certain types of information that can show up as a link within text, like dates, addresses, times, and phone numbers. A good example would be if a friend messaged you the address of where’d you’d be meeting tonight, and since that address would show up as a link within the message, tapping it would open up Google maps and give you options for navigation, or listed directions to that location. Slide to unlock is the fourth feature that Apple is claiming as another patent infringement. Literally every touch screen smartphone,(and even early touch screen phones like the Samsung Behold) have a swipe, drag, or gesture action needed to unlock the screen to put the user on the home screen. We’re not sure why Apple is singling out Samsung in this case, but then again the same thing is being done with every feature included in the suit. The last feature that Apple claims Samsung is using to infringe on their patents is auto completion of text. Predictive text is on every single iPhone, and exists within every single Android phone, through the stock software as well various third party apps, and has long existed in much older feature phones. What do you think about Apple’s claims of patent infringement over features?